Ad Nauseam
by madnifficent
Summary: Peggy/Ted - Set right after their final conversation in Peggy's office.


Peggy sits back down at her office desk, unable to move. She's cold all of a sudden and pulls a cardigan out of her cabinet and wraps it around her. She stares so hard at the typewriter the words on the page blur and cross, and she begins to feel nausea and panic all at once. She grabs a wastepaper basket and throws up into it, feeling like she is heaving up her heart with the sick in her stomach.

"This can't be real..." she says, out loud. What happened? Why would he do this? Her initial reaction to be cold and strike back at him with an attitude doesn't seem to make any sense to her any more, and at that thought she wipes away her mouth with a tissue and heads to the elevator.

There is a parking garage on the lowest two levels of the building that houses SC&P. She is determined to make it down there in time to catch him, but it's all she can do to perform the simple math and figure how long she has been in her office reeling from their final words. When she determines it could have only been 5 minutes or so, the elevator chimes for the 2nd floor. As any real girl from Brooklyn would, Peggy Olson rips her heels off her feet and bolts out of the elevator, much to the alarm of the regular 9-5ers on the 2nd floor who are just packing up and leaving. Peggy can only hope more of them are blocking the exits to the garage, and Ted will be stuck in traffic so she can catch up and say the something more she wants to.

It's right then when she slows her pace. What would she say? What more is there to say? As she reaches the door to the garage, she opens it and passes through it's steel frame – letting the cold of the blacktop reach her stockinged feet and her lungs breathe in the polluted yet refreshing air. As she turns to the right, where she knows Ted has a reserved spot close to the elevator access door, she sees his tall frame huddled over a nearby garbage can.

"Ted?" she calls out to him, startling him and making him wince even harder within his already visible distress. He is wiping his mouth and struggling to stand up straight, making it clear to Peggy that he has just been sick and is likely to be sick again.

"Stay back, Peggy. I can't... I am..." a low groan of a voice leaks out of him, and he heaves again. Nothing comes out, and behind Peggy she can hear a stirring crowd of 5 o'clock office workers making their way out towards the garage. Quickly, she closes the steel door and throws the lock on it, shielding Ted from the embarrassment of being yet another SC&P ad man throwing up all his liquid courage from the day in the garage.

"They'll eat you alive and make you feel even worse if they come in here. Are you ok?" Peggy asks after Ted stands and straightens up.

"Peggy, please - unlock that door. I refuse to hold anyone else back." The double meaning in Ted's words are not lost on either one of them. As they stand on opposite sides of the trash can that is housing Ted's lunch, Peggy looks at him and with her eyes pleads for more of an explanation.

"There is no more to be said, Peggy... I want you to live your life and move on from this. Leave me here!" Ted says, getting increasingly louder as he pushes off from the wall he'd been leaning on and begins walking to his car.

Peggy steps away from the trashcan and yells after him "You're leaving ME here!" and the same sting and anger that her final words in her office contained return to these words, and she grows more angry with herself than with Ted.

"I want you to move on, I am a broken man!" Ted fires back, wanting Peggy to pity him. Immediately she retorts, "Don't ask me to pity you because you can sink your small sorrows over me into your wife and kids and get a fresh start 3,000 miles away, Ted. We're past that!"

Ted turns to her and she is startlingly closer than he had expected. As he gains back his sense of smell after heaving up the whiskey it took him to even grab the door handle to Peggy's office, he catches wind of her scent. Chanel No. 5 mixed in with her own body chemistry, a combination no other woman could replicate wearing the same perfume – even Nan, who he'd weakly bought a bottle for a month ago so he could try to trick his heart by way of scent.

At that moment, he took in every bit of Peggy. Her brow now housed a wrinkle pattern he knew, one reserved for frustration over an account or a man. Her lips were swollen, as if she'd been biting at them. Her blouse was mussed, and her hair was windblown. He looked down at her feet and saw her shoes missing and her right hand clutching her navy pumps. In that moment, Ted realized she had run after him – a gesture no woman should ever have to make for the sake of a man.

"Did you... did you run down here to catch me?" Ted asked, weakly.

"Uh, yeah." Peggy replied. "I didn't think I'd catch you, but here we are."

Ted grabbed her with both arms pulled her into him. "My sorrow over losing you is not small, Peg. It's the hardest thing I've ever done, and I can't even pull away from it successfully – because here you are, saving me from myself."

Peggy gazed back at him, and simply said "So don't do this. Don't make us both sick with hurt and longing. Don't make me feel like our one night together was all you needed to be done with me..."

At that, Ted winced and immediately pulled her forehead to his lips and let out a sigh. "I never ever wanted you to feel like I used you, and I could be sick again just at the thought of you feeling that last night was anything other than magic.

As they stood there, holding one another, Peggy let out a giggle and Ted pulled back just enough to see her face. "That trashcan has seen better days..." Peggy mused, and Ted chuckled into her eyes, scanning her perfect face and soaking in the comfort of their easy repore with one another. She giggled again, now pulling her free hand to her face and saying "There's a wastepaper basket upstairs that can relate."

Ted looked at her incredulously, putting it together that she too had gotten sick after their would-be final conversation. He hated himself for ever making her feel any physical pain, and now cradled her in his arms. He held her there for a minute, stroking her hair over the back of her neck and comforting himself as well as her in the motion.

"I never meant to hurt you. I love you, and I just want what will be best for both of us." Ted said softly, including Peggy in the conversation he had only allowed himself to participate in before making a decision for both of them.

"We'll figure it out." Peggy said, as she pulled away and clutched his face in her free hand, scanning his eyes and his expression with hers.


End file.
